Christmas Week

It has been a very good week. Me and Elder Gifford have had the opportunity to try to get contact with as many RCLA's as we could. We set a goal of visiting and achieving 8 RCLA's this week. We got close of making it to 7. We did our best and a couple of the RCLA's canceled on us. We have had a lot of things happen this past week. It has of course been a tough week also.

We spent Monday night with one of the best Danish members I have ever been with. I can't even say all the things that we did. I don't think i would be able to finish emailing everyone. I will try to be fast. We had a phillipino dinner.(First time I have ever had that) Could barely taste the shrimp. Technically it was my fist time having shrimp haha. Don't judge, I grew up partially as a picky kid. I at least ate the whole entire dish they gave me. Never ate so much in my life. We had this type of Rice porridge, Ricsen Grøl (I think that probably spelled wrong ahhaa), where you put cinnimon and butter on top of this hot porridge. So delicious! Than we danced and sang around the Christmas Tree. Played musical chairs with presents where we had to pass the presents around and try to open through layers and layers of gift wrapping when the music was off. Than we followed the leader and sang and ran around the house. Than we had presents on the table and played like a white elephant game. The family wrapped all sorts of supplies that A missionary might need. I WON candy, toothbrush, shaving cream, dish washing soap, cookies. Eleif, one of the coolest members in Denmark, gave all of the missionaries the 2 different of the same skinny. So we can coordinate and wear the same tie on Sundays haha. We than ate some ice cream. Than while waiting for the bus gave a quick message and watched one of Elief's missionary videos from serving in England, the normal day version of the Prodigal Son haha.

Next day, Danish Christmas, we visited a less active. Than went to Church and asked the Bishop's wife when she was expecting us over for Dinner. (We were thinking around 6ish) She replied 4:30 at the latest haha. What the!?!?!?!?! So to make her happy we went over at 4 haha. After the program we were with the Bishops family. their son Mattias, I forgot to mention this, apparently I found out when I first got here that he served in the same mission as me in Chicago. He even had the same mission president. We did alot of the same activities as the previous night. But he ate Rics Alimon. Which is the same rice porridge, but cold. It has chopped almonds in it except for one and the objective is to eat and find the Almond. Out of the 3 times we have done it, I finally found the ALMOND yes! I ended up winning one of the best chocolate mints in Denmark haha. I loved being with this family it was awesome. (For dinner we had fleskistie, not sure on spelling haha, straight up pork with a layer of hard cooked fat around the pork, man it is so delicious can't find it in America without asking the butcher) But being with this family, it truly felt like home: peace, love, and friendship! it will probably be one of the memorable Christmas's I will probably ever have.

Next day we went caroling at an old folks home. Found out that it was as effective as knocking. We had a lot of grumpy people and people shutting the doors in our faces. Won't do that again haha. A senior missionary couple that lives in our ward, we dropped by them and they appreciated us caroling to them haha, The wife let us in and just fed us haha. I love that family! After we biked like crazy to go give a blessing. And guess what happened on Christmas day..... Yep I got a flat tire =( So upset with that. Had to pump my tire and ride as fast as we could. Stop and do it again just so we would make our train. Got to the station rode the train for 20 minutes and found out that the people that wanted a blessing were at the hospital now. So we traveled back and than took the buses and were about to do drop by's witht the Hillerød elders and than they got a message saying to come back. Well we didn't have time. We returned back to our apartment and fixed my bike and the other Elders went to give the blessing (it was in their area anyways ahah) We than had the opportunity to Skype the family later that night after a dinner appointment. It was so awesome to see them all in Duck Dynasty attire haha. I miss and love them so much! It completed the Christmas =) Love you Read Family!! Kia is such a fat dog ahaha

We have many miracles this past week of dropping by members and asking them who could be bring a bunch of cookies to. Someone who could need them during this Christmas time or possibly might be interested in a message. It has been positive. Many people who we dropped by were shocked and they thanked us. They saw us and many of them called the members and told them thank you. But we are sure this arrised questions. It helped the members have the opportunity to answer who we were and what we teach. One of the miracles came when at the beginning of the month me and Elder King prayed for families that we could do to it specifically and ask them for referrals. We visited this past week with the members and they told us to go to a family relative that was an excommunicated member. We visited and the family was really happy to see us! They invited us in. The wife, not a previous member, had many questions about us as missionaries. We shared a quick Christmas message and thanked them for letting us come in. The husband, excommunicated, even invited us to come back with the other 2 missionaries and help him with as he said it ''true missionary work'' service in his yard. We gave him our number and we found out that they have a daughter that is about the age for baptism! It was a wonderful miracle!

We also made contact last night with the Swedish/Danish family that called out to us from across the street. (Asking us if we were the Mormon Missionaries) The husband didn't seem interested at the time. They have 2 children and they showed us their mini nativity set. They wanted to show us what they thought of Christmas, the true meaning. The husband left the room and we gave our Christmas message. The wife loved it and was maybe interested in coming to our church. We gave her an address and were about to leave, when the husband out spurted that he found Jesus in Peru, he's there too you know. They seemed like the perfect family! We are planning on dropping by again in the very nearby future and hopefully share the Plan of Salvation with them.

It's been an awesome week! I hope everyone has felt the Saviors spirit as I have this Christmas Season. Love you all and thank you for everything! Continue to share our wonderful message of the restored gospel and about the savior. Until next week, <happy New Year!

Love Elder Jantzen Richard Read